- Chicken: house special chicken, fried and sauced with an addictively good garlic-scallion mixture, is special indeed. Also great: steamed chicken with black mushroom, a many-splendored but harmonious dish that also contains Chinese sausage, lily buds, ginger, scallions and jujubes.

A few blocks away in Chinatown, Oriental Garden remains a fine, if sometimes overlooked, spot for dim sum. Shu mai (steamed pork dumplings) and cheung fun (rice noodle rolls), to mention just two, are tops. “Wow–that’s all I can say,” raves wingman, who has been making the rounds of Chinatown’s yum cha contenders. He says the relatively small Oriental Garden beats Golden Bridge and Jing Fong in quality and Golden Unicorn and Dim Sum Go Go in selection. Others praise the user-friendly illustrated menu and accommodating service, not so common at Chinatown’s larger dim sum halls.

Two blocks west, outside the orbit of many Chinatown diners, Chanoodle continues to serve houndworthy Cantonese. “Easy to forget about this place,” notes Chandavkl, but it’s worth remembering for dishes like its flounder and tofu casserole, a chef’s special. Deb Van D is a fan of its crisp-fried soft shell crabs. Past records have singled out salt-baked squid, powerfully flavored with fresh chiles, raw shallots, and fried garlic.